¡Hola from Arequipa, Peru! We’re Jeremy and Katie Daggett, on the cusp of 11 years in Arequipa. Along with Adileen and Kinney we make up the current version of Team Arequipa since 2019. This is “The Daggetts in Arequipa” (née Team Arequipa Newsletter), a collection of stories, articles, pictures and prayer requests which we also publish out to the Team Arequipa blog. It’s here for those who can’t handle another email in their inbox—just come see us whenever you’d like.

A few months ago we finally got a dining room table! This is big because we hadn’t had a dining room table since 2019! The last apartment we lived in didn't have room for a table; and then it took us a year after moving into our house to find one we liked. To us the table is a sacred place. And we want our table to be a place where anyone is welcome and those that come to it feel loved. We wanted to have a blessing table. 

We’re fresh off a sabbatical month of August where our kids skipped school and we got to see a lot of incredible people in the US as well as spend special time with family. We arrived back to Arequipa refreshed and thankful for our home and work and are really excited about this season of ministry.  We believe that God is always up to more than we realize and pray that God would lead us to participate in life, new creation, kingdom, salvation—which is breaking in all around us. We pray Jesus’s prayer in our context

I believe that God’s Spirit works in formative ways at the intersection of travel and reflection. Interacting with people who are different than you can teach us so much about God, the world, and ourselves. That’s true in your hometown and it’s true when you travel. The gift of travel is that the ludicrous act of hurtling through the air in a tin can and dropping into a different part of the world heightens our awareness of difference. And in that space the Spirit works. 

2025 was our biggest year ever—just barely edging out the massive year we had in 2024: since March we’ve been working with 55 teachers and principals weekly, as well as the 1,530 kids in their classrooms spread out over five schools. We do what we do because we believe it’s a seed of the reign of God Jesus announced 2,000 years ago was breaking in. We believe children in Arequipa should be able to grow up learning to understand what they read. And to make that work long-term we need teacher transformation. So it’s a joy to share about three teachers this year who have caught the vision and where an impact is so readily seen.

Many of the books of non-fiction I read are incredible because of whom the authors have read and whom they are pointing you to read next. In the case of Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Art and Mystery of Living, Krista Tippett hasn’t just read the authors, mystics, scientists, activists, poets, she engages. She’s actually spoken with them, and has done so over decades. The result is an amazing book. Krista tells some of her own story as she walks us through a journey in the mystery and art of living by contemplating words, flesh, love, faith, and hope. 

In this issue, Katie shares about a complicated and somewhat hilarious process for getting her Peruvian driver's license, I reflect on how special the work is with Living Libraries has been in special thanks to all who contributed, and give just a quick snapshot of our semester with 35 students. Finally, we give Sarah a closing word as she transitions back to living in the US. We thank you so much for your ongoing prayers for us and for what is happening in Arequipa!

I got my Peruvian driver’s license!! This is a huge deal here for Peruvians and everyone congratulates you when you get it because everyone knows what a notoriously ridiculous process it is to actually get your license. So let me tell you a little about it.

Often I use this space to share big numbers about how many schools, teachers, and students we’re sharing the gift of reading with. I’m proud of the program and how big an impact our team is making in real lives of real teachers that plays out in the lives and futures of so many kids. The school year started in March, so we’re 9-weeks into a new school year and the team is hard at work with 52 teachers, in 6 schools, working with 1500 students. We set up 38 mini-libraries this year—many thanks to many of you!

It takes about 18 months of work to pull off a semester of Harding University Latin America. And it’s over in an instant. What happens over the course of three months, though, is real. The walks. Hours around the table. The conversations. The encounter with difference that teaches us something fundamental about what it means to be human.

Here we are a year and eight-ish months later. I am officially back in the US, but before I departed from Arequipa, I wrote these final words to my church community.  After apprenticing under the Daggetts and working in communal missions, this little speech sums up the radical effect my time in Peru had on my life and what it taught me about following Jesus and loving others.  

We’re the Daggetts: Katie, Jeremy, Adileen (almost 9! Just finished 3rd grade!) and Kinney (Almost 6! Just finished kindergarten) and we’ve lived and worked in Arequipa, Peru for the last ten years. This is the Team Arequipa Newsletter, a publication that’s been running consistently for more than 15 years and for which you, at some point, signed up to receive in your electronic mailbox. Overloaded? Unsubscribe. Here to stay? Welcome! 

Caily Moore lived and worked with us in Arequipa for the last 2+  years as part of a missions apprenticeship. You can read her complete letter here, but I wanted to share a snapshot of what she learned at the close of this edition of the Team Arequipa newsletter. 

One of the coolest products of teaching Humanities in the Asia-Pacific this fall was this collaboration with my friend Michael Wright and his incredible weekly letter, Still Life. I assigned one of his letters about exploring diversity locally to the class, and then Michael and I worked together to share what that experience looked like for my students. Here’s what I wrote.

This October marked 10 years for us in Peru, a number that sort of astounds us, especially since that was the top part of our 5-10 year commitment when we moved to Peru in 2014. We don’t have any plans to move anytime soon, and continue to pray and discern what life and mission and family and work look like on an ongoing basis. Thank you for keeping us in your prayers.

Before I tell you some incredible things that happened in 2024, I need to say this: we need your help for 2025. But before I tell you what that looks like, let me start with some snapshots of amazingness.

The world is moving to the city and we believe in a God who is already at work in the city for the sake of life. Evangelism is bearing witness to what God has done (and continues to do) in Jesus of Nazareth. Evangelism encompasses Kingdom proclamation—talking to people about faith, hope, and love because of Jesus—and Kingdom participation—joining in the types of things we believe happen when the kingdom of God is breaking in. In the book of Acts, the Spirit of God tends to lead the followers of Jesus into shared life with the people they least expected or desired to be with. God’s Spirit creates joining.

Fifteen years ago (this summer), a research team led by Bill and Holly Richardson came to help us collect data around our neighborhood of Miraflores in Arequipa, Peru. Our little family moved to Peru in 2008 with the Smith Family. We moved with our almost 2-year-olds. We were coming up on one year of living in Arequipa, and I was about to pop with our first little Peruvian-born baby. It was a joy to host this eager group of possible missionaries. Do you recognize anyone in the research team photo?

Given everything else you could be doing right now, I’d like to make this time with you meaningful. I’d like to be raw with you. But first, let’s start with an introduction! To those of you who don’t know me: Hi, My name is Ana McKinzie. I’m a former missionary kid, a rising senior, and a girl in awe of how much God revealed to her through this trip. “This trip” was a three-week time span stretching from the end of June to mid July. To those who do know me, you already know that this was not my first time in Peru. 

We’re the Daggetts and for the last ten years (!!) we have lived and worked in a city of a million people in southern Peru. Katie and I share faith and hope with small house churches as we work to unite love of God and love of neighbor in the city of Arequipa. We work with a small non-profit doing sustainable community development focusing on education and sharing life with Arequipa’s marginalized communities. We direct Harding University Latin America, a residential study abroad program where we invite 20-30 students every spring into the process of intercultural spiritual formation.

Buenos días from Hunter Hill! I love to get above the city, and this is one of my favorite spots to see the city from a different perspective. I didn’t get the chance to take HULA 2024 up here, so I decided to document it with pictures and words for them, and also for you. Some of you have been up here with me before, so for you I hope this is a helpful reminder of our shared prayer in Arequipa. 

My first Mother’s Day in Peru (as a mother, see the picture below), our neighbors, Pedro and Frecia, invited us to spend the day with them because they knew we didn’t have family here and wanted to share that with us. Because of the generosity we were shown that day, I wanted to pass it on. So, this Mother’s Day I wanted to have a full table and I knew if I cooked food, they would come. So I cooked a meal and we invited anyone that was a part of our church meeting to stay and eat with us. Those who don’t have a mother living or who don’t live near family ended up staying and eating and we shared the afternoon around the table.

Since 2019, a significant part of our lives and work in Arequipa has revolved around our role as directors of Harding University Latin America. Once a year, we receive 15-30 students to live and learn with us for three months. As HULA 2024 drew closer to the end, a lot of our “top moments” came to mind—and there’s a lot of those! A first tour where our eyes are open to tragic history at Espacio Memoria in Buenos Aires. Hiking one of the world’s most beautiful trails—Fitz-Roy to Laguna de los Tres in El Chalten. Walking on the Perito Moreno glacier or navigating the Beagle Channel and hiking in Tierra del Fuego National Park at the world’s southernmost tip until you see some penguins. There’s sandboarding on the dunes of Paracas and watching the sun set in the desert. There’s waking up in the Colca Valley and realizing you’re in one of the most beautiful places on earth. There’s fishing for piranhas in the vast Amazon rainforest in all its breathtaking diversity. There’s walking an ancient path all the way to Machu Picchu’s original entrance so that the Inca sanctuary becomes your classroom. And there's HULA's final trip, traveling to the most remote inhabited landmass on earth, Rapa Nui, and learning what it means to be human through the lens of that incredible history and culture. 

This fall I met with a good friend of mine who has connections to everyone in the city (it seems like) and she said, “Katie, I think we should do a Bible study at the women’s prison.” She also has a way of dragging me into all her plans…or God has a way of using her to push me out of my comfort zone.I was nervous and didn’t know what to expect but I agreed to do it. We went together to the prison to meet with the director of the prison and got things set up so that in November we began a six-week study with a group of 48 women. 

The last three months have been intense. In particular, Katie has been doing really special work. In October she went to the Connections conference in Brazil, visited our house church’s missionary in a mountain community of Apurimac, and worked in a medical campaign in Cusco. Between those things we hosted an alumni group as part of Harding’s celebration of 100 years. All of that led into an incredible November. She got to go to two of four sessions of a personal finance course that Paty did with a group called Féminas, a group of women with tough lives, most of whom are sex workers. Katie and Paty have been building relationships with them over the last couple years, and at the end of the personal finance class the women suggested a Bible study as a next step. See more below in the article about CUDA and please pray for that opportunity!

We moved! Our big news from the last few weeks is that we moved to a new neighborhood in the district of Sachaca. October was a whirlwind, and on the 31st, the same day that our kids got to trick-or-treat for the first time ever, we moved a couple miles away from where we’ve been for the last 8.5 years. The month and a half we’ve been here so far have been full of affirmation that we made the right decision, and I ask for your prayers as we start to share life and faith in a new part of the city.

There are two videos I want to include right here. We’ve written thousands of words this year to try to share what our lives look like, but a video has the capacity to capture the feel of something. My friend Mark Slagle of 1504 Pictures visited us in March and shot an incredible amount of footage. His creative work resulted in two videos. One shows the spark of life that Living Libraries brings into communities in Arequipa as we train teachers. The other tells the story about our approach to study abroad through HULA, as well as visuals from one of our favorite places in the world, the Colca Valley. 

One of the great honors of my last 9 years in Arequipa (!!) is to be connected with the Christian Urban Development Association. It’s not often that there is such a tangible move from faith to action, executed in a such a thoughtful, impactful way. A theology of the inbreaking kingdom of God is beautiful. It sounds like Jesus in the Nazareth synagogue, talking about good news to the poor, freedom for the incarcerated, healing to the oppressed. Because there is something about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that means good news for us—right now!—as we wait for the renewal of all things.

In two weeks we celebrate 9 years in Arequipa. We are deeply thankful for your love, support, and prayers, and ever more aware of God’s presence toward goodness and healing and peace in the midst of a chaotic and broken city.